


It's Ken, not Ken-not

by Elyssian



Series: [K]ollection [2]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Drabble, Ken's Birthday Fics, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-06
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-05-31 15:25:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6475684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elyssian/pseuds/Elyssian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles for Ken AKA Lee Jaehwan's birthday. Each chapter is Ken/Member, but the ships may need to be squinted at. Cross posted to AFF.<br/>(Ring-Hyuk/Ken Mermaid AU)<br/>(Moon-Ravi/Ken Space AU)<br/>(Dress-Hongbin/Ken Magic School AU)<br/>(Earthly-Leo/Ken Ghost AU)<br/>(Secret-N/Ken Werewolf AU)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ring

Jaehwan briefly recalls a travelling caravan recounting a tale to him.

There was once a man so enamoured with his visage he spared minutes of his hour to sit beside a lake and sigh at his reflection. There was a girl who cared for him so deeply she spent each of those minutes with him, even though he never once looked her way. Not even when those minutes became hours and she fed water into his parched throat, not even when those hours became days and she was stuffing food down into a forgotten mouth. It was in essence, as Jaehwan understood, the story of a self centred man and an pitiful girl.

“Whoops!”

Another splash of water hit his face and Jaehwan kept his eyes squeezed shut, his lips pressed firmly into an upset line. He had been playing the role of the girl for the better part of the week by now, and he was determined to switch their roles.

“That one reached you!” Sanghyuk yelled jovially from the water's edge. He'd been trying to ise his tail to splash water on Jaehwan for hours. The mermaid's tail was not as strong as it should have been, a downside to being lake-grown and not free in the oceans. This was the first splash that had reached him. 

“Hey! Aren't you mad?”

There it was- the hint of exasperation in Sanghyuk's voice. Jaehwan had been waiting for that all morning, leaning up against a dead oak till his back was sore. It was far enough that Sanghyuk could not reach him, and the same could be said for most of Sanghyuk's splashes of green tinged lake water. Jaehwan resisted the urge to smile.

_That'll teach him to go about mocking me._

It had been a week since Jaehwan had led his horse to drink at the lake. It had bucked madly when Sanghyuk had come up to the surface for a peak, his cerulean tail rippling the still waters. The horse had sent one of Jaehwan's bags flying into the water and the mermaid had dived for it. Despite Jaehwan's pleading, the darned creature had refused to return it.

“Is this about the bag?”

When Jaehwan opened his eyes, the merman was nervously peaking out at him from the lip of the lake. Jaehwan almost felt guilty. In some ways, despite the fine cut of his features, Sanghyuk was a child.

“Is the bag really so important?” Sanghyuk asked with a jittering voice.

Jaehwan had been vaguely stressing it's importance for five days now, but Sanghyuk's childlike expressions were wearing on him more than he'd thought they were. He must have been younger than he looked.

Sighing, Jaehwan left his safe zone and dropped himself carefully down onto the slippery rim of the lake.

“There is something very important in that bag. If you bring it up, I'll show you.”

Sanghyuk seemed surprised, then gleeful. Excited by the prospect of Jaehwan not ignoring him, he dove down in a fluid twist. In mere seconds, he was coming back up with a waterlogged pouch of leather. Jaehwan became very thankful that his art materials were in the other bag.

Jaehwan emptied out the bag beside him and Sanghyuk watched with fascination.

A water pouch rolled out, followed by a letter Jaehwan had been meaning to burn, two loose coins and the box containing his very important item.

“Now this here,” Jaehwan began, pulling the key free from the loop of chain around his neck. When he slotted the fine silver in, the box gave two clicks. “Is something my father passed to me as a gift for my coming of age.”

The box gave a last few clicks as Jaehwan turned the key a fourth time, and the lid sprang open. He tilted the box forward so Sanghyuk could gasp as the thick ring of iron, cushion by stiff straps of hide.

“It's a family ring, and it's very important to me because there isn't any ring other in the world.” Jaehwan looked down at the ring fondly. “My family were smiths for lords and knights. My father crafted this with his own hands.”

“You don't look like a smith.” Sanghyuk pointed out, tapping at Jaehwan's spindly fingers with a smile. “You have brittle fingers.”

“These are not brittle fingers.” Jaehwan scoffs. “These are painter's fingers. I'm meant for a different form of art from my family.”

Then, as an afterthought, Jaehwan added, “You have pretty fingers yourself.”

Jaehwan had meant to insult him and his supple, lady like fingers, but he had stumbled and delivered the wrong lines. He was too earnest, and now Sanghyuk was staring at his hands in wonder, trying to see the compliment.

“I have thicker fingers than you.” Sanghyuk observed.

Jaehwan laughed. “Then you might fit the ring better then me. I don't think my father expected such boney hands when he made this.”

True to his word, Jaehwan plucks the ring from it's confines and motions for Sanghyuk's hand. He extends delicately, an odd sort of reverence towards the ring in his eyes. Perhaps it was because he had never seen one before, but Jaehwan would boast the skills of his family and claim it was the beauty of the design.

It slid down Sanghyuk's ring finger, the finger Jaehwan had deemed the perfect thickness. It slid till it came to a comfortable rest above his knuckle.

“Wow. It's heavy.” Sanghyk said, bringing it up to his eye. His tail swished in the water, disturbing the rest of various loose leaves.

“It's supposed to be heavy. That means it's sturdy.” Jaehwan extended his hand for the ring, and Sanghyuk offered his pale fingers. Jaehwan tugged at it. It didn't slide off. He tugged once more, with a bit more strength.

It was _stuck._

“Oops?” Sanghyuk said weakly. Jaehwan groaned. He was never going to get his ring back.


	2. Moon

When they told him the specs of the mission, Wonshik had titled the target as ‘princess’. It had sounded like an oldies romance novel anyway, right until they loaded him into a rocket. So Wonshik had thought, why the heck not? Princess it was, until Wonshik actually landed on the moon.

Now don't get him wrong, Lee Jaehwan was beautiful, but he was unmistakably male.

“Hi,” The strung up prince began. “You wouldn't be assassin number fifteen would you?”

“… Just wait there for a minute or two, I'm going to check.” Wonshik turned and began stalking away to the nearest sizeable boulder, pulling at his pockets for a handheld.

“No worries!” Jaehwan called after him. “I _am_ tied to a tree, as you can see!” Just for show, he tested the set of bonds running across his chest, then the set around his wrists. “As you can also see, I'm not exactly free to leave!”

* * *

 

When Wonshik came back, he looked slightly more serious. Jaehwan sighed. So he _was_ assassin number fifteen.

“Okay, here's the deal.”

 _Here we go_ , Jaehwan thought. Someone who wanted to talk it out with his guilty conscience- well Jaehwan had already gotten two of those.

“I'm supposed to be killing you, by order of your uncle.”

Jaehwan nodded sympathetically. “No worries. I'm used to it.”

“But the deal is your uncle is a dick of a dictator so I'd figure, I'll just let you go.”

“Say what now?”

Womshik nodded, as if Jaehwan hadn't said anything. He moved forward, unfolding a knife from somewhere in his jacket and moving for the bonds.

Jaehwan bit his lip. There was a reason no one had killed him yet. Primarily, it was because he was on the moon and the moon was traditionally sacred ground. A holy no-kill zone if you must. Secondly, the tree and bonds were enchanted by his mother's sister, who was some kind of ancient witch. Jaehwan didn't know the details, since he was too busy scoffing at the term ‘ancient witch’, but anyone who had come near him with intent to kill had been disintegrated by the tree.

It was a pretty cool thing, had it not required that Jaehwan be strapped to the magic tree.

Jaehwan held his breath as Wonshik angled his knife above Jaehwan. He would know in a few seconds if he was lying. If Wonshik didn't die, Jaehwan would be free. If he died, Jaehwan would still be plastered up the tree.

Wonshik sliced downwards and Jaehwan breathed in deep for the first time in months.

“Thank you. You have no idea how good this feels.”

Wonshik eyes the loops of thick cables at their feet. “I've got a pretty good guess.” He said dryly.

Jaehwan ran his hand down himself, relishing at the touch and easing his stiff muscles. The vest he was wearing didn't shield him well from the dry wind, and now that the tree's enchantment was gone his arms had chilled. Jaehwan started rubbing at them, until a coat was pressed into his arms.

Jaehwan looked up. Wonshik had a jacket under that coat, and he was smiling at Jaehwan kindly.

“Take it. You look like you need it.”

“Thank you.”

Jaehwan put on the light coat and eased into the lingering warmth. He felt good, in a way he hadn't since he first set foot on the ashy plains. His new coat swept up a small dust storm as he walked towards Wonshik, and the white was creeping on the hems now.

“Lee Jaehwan,” he offered with his hand.

The other man took it. “Kim Wonshik.”

After a moment's pause, he continued, with a smirk, “Now where to your highness?”

Jaehwan gave it a moment's thought. “There are some… favours I would like to return to my uncle.”

Wonshik grinned.


	3. Dress

It was the dress. 

Somewhere at the start of the day, Kim Mina had brought her very nice, very expensive dress to school. It was, the witch bragged, the most stunning dress in the shop and her father had gotten it for her. She would be changing into it later, because prom was on the last Friday of the term and the last Friday of the term was technically still a school day. 

It, Jaehwan had followed up, looked like a whale had vomited some sea corals on a mannequin. It was an artist's claim, and Hongbin was pretty sure it was Jaehwan's form of a complicated compliment but to Kim Mina it had been the lowest of insults. It had the girl cursing, both the runic verses and the banned-for-impoliteness verses. 

Sp when the dress went missing, she broke down the art room door and levitated Jaehwan out the door. 

“Wah, Hyung! You're gonna get killed!” Sanghyuk yelled from the track field. 

“Why don't you come and help me then!” Jaehwan yelled back, fighting off the post that Mina was enchanting around him. 

A window opened somewhere to Jaehwan's left and he heard Wonshik yell. 

“Hey! Mr Jung wants to know what you're doing!”

“I'm getting killed!”

Wonsik put his head back in and relayed the message. 

“Mr Jung says to remind you that maiming is an afterschool activity and both of you a liable to be sent to detention!”

Jaehwan sputtered in disbelief. “Seriously? C'mon Taekwoon!”

He briefly sees his form flicker through the windows, his expression crinkling into exasperation. The class he's teaching- some form of humanities- was snickering away at the show outside their window. 

Kim Mina wasn't the type to risk dissing a teacher though, and she de-enchanted the tree and let him down. To be more accurate, she cut off the levitation spell with Jaehwan five feet up in the air. 

When he managed to blink the stars out of vision, Mina was gone and Hongbin was sighing down at him. Jaehwan took the hand he offered regardless. 

“Okay Jaehwan, now what did you do to that poor girl's dress?”

-

As Jaehwan understands, Mina's dress had wrangled itself from her lockers somewhere between homeroom and break. The ghastly red thing had then begun terrorising the students by slipping into classes and enshrouding an unfortunate few. 

“I don't why she thinks it's me,” Jaehwan wails. “I'm not strong enough for that kind of magic yet.” 

Jaehwan can make his drawings move and nothing more. Taekwoon had once theorised that at some point of his life, Jaehwan might be able to make them leave the page. Principal Cha cheerily maintains that he'll have Jaehwan be as hood as a golem master by the time he graduates. (Then again, Hakyeon is an optimist down to his genes.)

“Maybe she thinks you put someone up to it? Sookjin's been rocking it out in Spells lately.” Hongbin offers, nudging his chin into Jaehwan's shoulder as the animator scribbles a quick figure on the walls. Hongbin pokes at it, the fifth made in the past half hour. 

Hongbin leans back when Jaehwan pushes back to stretch, letting him lounge against his chest. Jaehwan sighs and they wait for the drawings to come back. They'll search the building for the rouge dress and when they find it, they'll see if Kim Mina can be appeased when they return it. 

Jaehwan pulls Hongbin's arm over his chest and mumbles. “Sookjin? If it was him, he'd be walking around with a neon sign over his head by now.” Hongbin nods into Jaehwan's hair. “You're right. He always proud of his pranks. Sanghyuk?” 

Jaehwan shakes his head. “Not the right kind of magic.” 

Hongbin and Jaehwan hum for the next few minutes, dry of ideas. Jaehwan is dry of energy, since five animations is pushing into his limit. Hongbin will have to deal with the dress when they find it. 

One of the sketches come back in a frenetic squirm of squiggles after ten minutes. 

Second storey, hall, it spells out for them. 

Hongbin nudges at Jaehwan, but his head lolls heavily to the side. “Dead as a log.” Hongbin sighs. He gets up and ends up leaving Jaehwan asleep on the art room floor, framed by soft sunlight. Hongbin really couldn't bring himself to wake Jaehwan, not when his hair had be lit into a golden brown and his lips had eased into a relaxed smile. Besides, it was just a dress.

Hongbin could handle a dress. 

-

Hongbin could not handle a dress, as it turns our, because when Jaehwan woke up he was strapped to a stake. 

“What the-”

Kim Mina was sobbing in a corner, and the school had gathered around to cheer for the show. In the day, this would have looked cruel. But in the night, they looked like a cult. Sanghyuk was cheering loudest, holding up a banner while Wonshik curled up on the ground beside him, laughing his guts out. Sanghyuk's banner read, Thank You Jaehwan-Hyung, For The Best Prom Ever! 

“Sanghyuk!” Jaehwan called. It was likely that he wouldn't answer, but anyone who could talk to him right now was good enough. “What's going on?!”

Taekwoon floated through him, sending Sanghyuk shrieking, and looked up at him disapprovingly. Principal Cha was parting the crowd behind him, moving forward with a look of utter mortification. 

“Kim Mina is determined to convict with dress related charges.” Taekwoon explained, and pointed to what Mina had been pointing and sobbing at. Jaehwan craned his neck and sputtered. 

The dress had latched itself on Hongbin, and Jaehwan be damned if he didn't think that dress look fine on Hongbin. Fighting to keep the dress from morphing into a slip, Hongbin spotted Jaehwan's smirk and glared murderously. 

“Someone hand me a torch, we're burning Jaehwan!”


	4. Earthly

The last will and testament of a certain Mr Lee dictates that all his earthly and unearthly possessions be left in the care of his great-grandson, a certain Mr Lee Jaehwan. 

When the lawyer, a tall scarecrow of a man with translucent wisps of hair on a wrinkled crown, had delivered the letter one warm summer evening Jaehwan had, in a very uncertain voice, if he was sure he had the right Lee Jaehwan because this Lee Jaehwan does not remember a great-grandfather (or an anybody) who would leave him anything. 

“You are the successor to Mr Lee's properties.” The lawyer affirmed in a strung voice that seemed to oddly match the straw filled limbs he had stuffed into his stiff suit. 

“Well, if you're so sure…” Jaehwan said, biting his lip. His last roommate had run out on him and his mother was threatening to stop paying for his art classes. It would do him good, he reasoned, to take this offer. 

Jaehwan takes the letter carefully, afraid that the lawyer's paper skin will split and brittle bone will crack. Jaehwan reads the letter carefully, looking for a catch in it's shortness, but there is nothing to look for. Well, almost nothing. 

“Excuse me, but this part here says ‘unearthly possessions’, is it a typo?” 

Jaehwan looks up but there is nothing but fallen leaves where the lawyer once stood. 

-

The house is tucked into a nondescript neighbour hood, a messy grid of middle aged houses and middle aged houses with makeovers. It's a bit farther from his school as compared to his apartment, but the main road leads to a shortcut Jaehwan knows Wonshik and Hongbin use when they're late. 

Jaehwan's new house is a older model, but well maintained. There are no cracks in the walls or paint peeling off, and Jaehwan can live with the simplistic design. It's a bit big, but when Jaehwan walks in he finds that space will be a bit of a problem. 

“Shelves,” Jaehwan says, a disbelieving eye on the interior. “Shelves.”

Great grandfather Lee was a collector it seemed, because backed against every wall was a shelf and each shelf was weighed by armies of miscellaneous items. Jaehwan traces his way through the house with a hand on one shelf. He starts out with an egg collection, turns a corner and finds doorknobs before ending up with the kitchen collection of preserved spices. Jaehwan thinks that the kitchen is pretty nice, with the intact gas stove and only slightly dusty countertops, and it would be much nicer if there wasn't a man sitting by the dining table. 

“Hi?” Jaehwan ventures, inching a foot into the room. The man is, in a physical way, intimidating. His eyes are darkened to a deadened gaze and his face is pulled into a frown. 

“Are you Jaehwan?” He asks back in a quiet voice, jarringly mismatched with his stern face. 

“Yep, that's me.” Jaehwan says brightly. He must be a groundskeeper or another lawyer, Jaehwan thinks. 

“I'll be your servant starting today.” The man informs him, floating up from his seat and ghosting through the table. He extends a semi-transparent hand, but retracts it after a moment, a pale blush creeping on his defined cheeks. “I'm Jung Taekwoon. I'm sorry, I'd shake your hand but…”

Jaehwan, still staring with his mouth open, prods him in the chest. His finger goes through. 

“Excuse for a moment.” Jaehwan turns, heads down a corner he knows has a bathroom down the end of it and locks himself in it. Then he dials Hongbin. 

“Hey, Jaehwan-”

“MY GRANDFATHER LEFT ME A GHOST.”

“Say that again?”


	5. Secret

There was something morally wrong about Jaehwan breaking his own privacy rule, especially since the room he was sneaking into belonged to Hakyeon and Hakyeon was several years older. 

The thing is, Jaehwan's pretty sure Hakyeon's been making pot in his room. 

Pot, alcohol, whatever. But Jaehwan knows several things, like the fact Hakyeon had stolen a bunch of shit from school chemistry lab. Distillers and a bag of bunsen burners are kinda hard to sneak past him. Furthermore, Jaehwan defends in his head, Hakyeon's room has been leaking weird liquids and emitting unusual smells for the past month. And if Jaehwan's gonna be the guy cleaning the stains off Hakyeon's laundry, he deserves to know what he's been pouring detergent on. 

Jaehwan tries pushing the door open but it catches on something, and when Jaehwan pokes his head in to see what it is, he winces. Hakyeon's floor looks like the aftermath of an earthquake. When Jaehwan pushes his whole body through the opened, he realises how accurate his statement was. Literally everything is one floor- Hakyeon's books, Hakyeon's clothes, Hakyeon's everything else, Hakyeon's drug making set- 

Jaehwan nears Hakyeon's former study table. The distiller has been set up on it, followed by an assortment of tubes and beakers Jaehwan hadn't notice Hakyeon steal. All sorts of weird liquids are in them, in a variety of colours Jaehwan can match up with his paint set. The final product seems to be something greyish, smoking slightly in a flask. 

Jaehwan picks it up and sniffs. 

Big mistake. The smell is so foul Jaehwan starts choking, and the liquid shit splatters on his arm before falling to the ground and shattering. Jaehwan squeaks when he sees it sizzle through Hakyeon's copy of Grimms and runs for his bathroom to scrape whatever it is off his arm. 

-

When Hakyeon comes home everything is quiet. 

“Jaehwan?” Hakyeon calls out anyway, despite knowing he couldn't be home. If Jaehwan was home, he'd be in the living room, drawing, or upstairs with one of the others. The noisy others. Jaehwan never liked being alone in a quiet place. Hakyeon agreed. Maybe he should call Taekwoon or Sanghyuk later for company. 

There was a sound from the hallway, like someone had knocked into a wall. 

Hakyeon ran for the rooms, because this wasn't exactly a robber free neighbourhood, and tripped over something around the corner. He landed, winded, on his back. He noticed his door was open, and that Jaehwan's door was destroyed. 

At his feet, a large dog was looking at him with Jaehwan's apologetic eyes. 

“Please don't tell me you went in my room.” Hakyeon groaned. The wolf snorted and tilted its head, forcing it's maw into a hideous smile of guilt. Hakyeon groaned. 

“God damn it Jaehwan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last two chapters are a little short, but I hope they're okay. 
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LEE JAEHWAN! MAY YOU BE HAPPY IN LIFE AND HAPPY IN VIXX!


	6. Coming soon, Excelsis

The Royal We:

  
“It just wouldn't come off!” Jaehwan sputters over his tankard of mead. “One week to get that ring back and it would not budge from his finger-”

Hongbin clamped a hand over Jaehwan's mouth. “Calm down before you choke on that. And then can rewind to the part where you're supposed to explain to me just why you put that ring on a mermaid?”

* * *

 

Solar:

  
“Taekwoon's an informant.” Wonshik says, ducking between stalls at random. “If you need anything, he's the best place to start.”

“So he's your guy.” Jaehwan concludes. “Mind if I pick my guy?”

“Depends.” Wonshik shrugs. “Who's your guy?”

“Han Sanghyuk.”

* * *

 

Unearthly possessions:

If Jaehwan hadn't helped him scrape through four years of mandatory art class, Wonshik wouldn't be here right now, squeezed between Jaehwan and Hongbin, staring at a guy in a kitchen.

“Jaehwan this is riduculous.” Wonshik hisses. “He looks like a normal guy!”

“He is not!” Jaehwan hisses back and nudges Wonshik's shoulders. “Look!”

Wonshik looks, to the empty space where the man used to be and the shelf of petrified spices the man's head has gone through.

“I'm sorry, but I really need to discuss something with you.”

Wonshik made a split section decision.

“Yup! Nope! I ain't getting possessed on a Friday night!”

* * *

 

Wolfsbane:

  
Hakyeon groans and runs a hand over his face. “He sniffed the potion Taekwoon. The smoking, purple potion. Why did you ask me to live with this idiot?” He moans into the phone. Jaehwan gives the most offended wolf face he can.

“It's because… he is an idiot and he needs someone responsible?” Taekwoon says, sounding unsure.


End file.
